Philadelphia Hackers and Others Offer Brotherly Love To Fallen Robot 142
An anonymous reader writes: Since a hitchhiking robot was destroyed in Philadelphia over the weekend, there has been an overwhelming show of support according to its co-creators Frauke Zeller and David Smith. Makers from all over Philly have reached out and offered to help rebuild the robot. "We'll say that at this moment, if we get the OK from the creators to repair or replace the needed parts for HitchBOT, we'll be happy to do so," wrote Georgia Guthrie, executive director for a local makerspace called The Hacktory. "If not, we understand and we may just build ourselves a HitchBot2 to send along on its journey. We feel it's the least we can do to let everyone, especially the Robot community, know that Philly isn't so bad."
Re:Where is it? (Score:4)
Based on the CBC radio interview this morning (I haven't RTFA) they are still missing the head. Also there is conflicting information about where the parts were found.
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ROBOT LIVES MATTER!! (Score:2)
ROBOT LIVES MATTER!!!
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"It's not a purse! It's European!"
Officer, someone stole my black leather bag with a strap!. You mean a purse? Yes, a purse. I carry a purse!
I love that episode.
Re:Where is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unreal that this is still going on. It's FAKED. They shot the "surveillance" footage themselves: https://twitter.com/JMJimmy1/s... [twitter.com] - they stole the head and left the dismembered body behind to generate clicks & views.
Re:Where is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
To clarify, "They" are Jesse Wellens & Ed Bassmaster.
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That sucks. Jesse Wellens is already pulling in more than a half million a year from his YouTube prankvsprank channel. Did he really need a few extra dollars from extra publicity that he was willing to mess up Hitchbot?
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Hey, you can never have too much money!!
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I would mod this up. There's also video evidence showing that Bassmaster was wearing the same shirt earlier as the guy in the video who destroyed the robot.
If there are any just desserts in this world, CMT would pull Bassmaster's upcoming TV program for this meanspirited act of vandalism.
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Certainly looks staged, I agree.
For example, why is the sky pitch black despite it purportedly being 5:45 AM (well into civil twilight, just 15 min. before full sunrise)?
The remaining question is: are they small d-bags (staged a fake destruction after some unknown party performed the actual destruction) or big ones (did the actual destruction themselves)? I'd guess the former—in an effort to make others look foolish, that seems to be more their M.O., but the latter wouldn't surprise me all that much e
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All you need to look at is what is not in the video. There's no plants, sign post for the stop sign, or Elfreths Ally sign. That means the camera needs to be on the near side of the Ally sign where there's no reason for a security camera to be. Then you look at the angle it's shot from, it's low down, maybe 6 feet off the ground. A quick look at photos of the area for comparison and you can see the place that fits that description is the ledge of the Ally sign - a perfect place to plop a camera on to re
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Agree with everything else you're saying, except perhaps this:
They also had to move the bot so it would fit in frame from that shooting location, that's why it's on a different bench from when the local news recorded it earlier.
The "beating" would have occurred on-camera (IIUC) had they performed it in the same place as it had been found. I'd venture that they weren't in possession at the time of the staged beating because it was a few nights after it actually occurred, so they just fake-beat a non-existent bot (plus the two prop arms—who knows what they actually were) just beyond the camera's visibility.
As I said before, I think it's more likely that they just wa
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If you look at the Fox29Philly news footage there are two benches, one on either side of the garbage can. It was left on the left hand side of the one closest to the Ally which is off camera (at the bottom) in the "security" video. You can only see the right hand side of that bench. Had they left the robot where it was you would have either seen nothing or seen the face of the "attacker" clearly. Hence, having to move it to the 2nd bench further away to fit in frame. The "body" was found on the other s
American Cities (Score:2, Insightful)
Why are American cities such rotten, dangerous hellholes? In Europe, (well Western Europe), nothing would have happened to this robot and the people would have simply have been amused by it.
I really don't understand USA. Is the government of these cities so poor?
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How European of you to presume that 1) American cities are rotten and 2) that the government is to blame for the actions of individuals.
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Re: American Cities (Score:2)
"And if you don't think that American cities are cesspools compared to their European counterparts"
Oh, I see you've never heard of this one city called London...
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Hey, It's not like the robot got shot or anything....
Thug culture is to blame. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the United States, there is something called "thug culture". It glorifies things like not getting any sort of a useful education, not getting a legitimate job, joining gangs, engaging in violence, engaging in the abuse and peddling of drugs, engaging in the abusive use of guns, committing theft, committing robbery, committing murder, and so forth. Rap music is one of the main ways that this culture is glorified and promoted in the media.
This is the kind of culture that resulted in the destruction of this robot. It's also the kind of culture that results in its participants attacking police officers, then getting shot by these officers when they have to defend themselves from violence.
The worst part, though, is that many Americans refuse to acknowledge (although they do know it to be true) that this is a rotten, degenerate culture. In fact, they blame everybody but the thugs for the situation that the thugs are in! According to these apologists, it isn't the thugs' faults that they totally rejected all of the free education provided to them and refuse to participate in legitimate society. And according to them the police should just stand there and allow these thugs to violently attack them. As long as these apologists keep on defending what really is an indefensibly terrible culture, we'll keep seeing incidents like this where police are maliciously attacked, and things like this travelling robot are unnecessarily destroyed.
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In the United States, there is something called "thug culture". It glorifies things like not getting any sort of a useful education, not getting a legitimate job, joining gangs, engaging in violence, engaging in the abuse and peddling of drugs, engaging in the abusive use of guns, committing theft, committing robbery, committing murder, and so forth.
It works so well, sometimes we call 'em 'bankers' and 'republicans' and 'capitalists'.
A fish rots from the head down, friend. If there's lower class thuggery it only shows they've learned the lessons of America well. Literally everything you said is the moral standards of the ruling class except for 'drugs' read 'pharmaceuticals', for 'robbery' read 'arbitrage', and well, I guess nothing else need be changed.
It's nice you calling for unilateral disarmament, but mind your own thugs first please. Nobody's buy
Re:Thug culture is to blame. (Score:4, Insightful)
Literally everything you said is the moral standards of the ruling class except for 'drugs' read 'pharmaceuticals', for 'robbery' read 'arbitrage', and well, I guess nothing else need be changed.
Now, now, that's not true at all! The rich don't usually do their own dirty work. They drive other people into poverty, and then have them do it in order to try to survive. That way, they can keep the blood off of their own suit.
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But thanks to the egalitarianism of technology, now we can all keep blood and other fluids off our formalwear [slashdot.org].
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And don't forget, the rich assholes who refuse to spend money to fix social problems are also screeching loudly for tougher prison sentences and pretending that failure to address poverty is why you have more crime.
It's a refusal to fix the problem and look at reality, and instead treat them like separate things.
Just like all the assholes who want abortion outlawed but are unwilling to help fund the raising of the children born to people who can't afford to raise them.
It's puritanical assholes demanding pun
Blame the right and the left (Score:1)
The war on drugs destroys lives and encourages bringing in more drugs. The right ought to learn that punishment doesn't always stop a behavior.
Reality TV and the Internet has destroyed shame.
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Seriously?
Spending money does not and CAN not fix social problems. We've seen the beautifully exemplified by the non-success of the War on Poverty we've been waging for decades.
You can't buy your way out of immoral, uneducated, violent social problems that many of our US sub-cultures embrace. It has to come FROM the community itself.
If nothing else, the throwing of $$ at it and many programs meant to give help, have be
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Why should anybody have their money *taken* to fix OTHER people's "social problems"?
People aren't being "left" in poverty.. They're not helping themselves out of poverty. Why don't they go to the already cheap (because they're subsidized) community colleges to learn something new to get a better job to make more money?
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You are funny, trying to justify the actions of savages who refuse to take responsibility for themselves and are essentially adult babies throwing a tantrum. No respect for themselves, for others, for rule of law, or their spawn. They are a lost cause
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It works so well, sometimes we call 'em 'bankers' and 'republicans' and 'capitalists'.
Uh huh. So favorite your 'group' got called out for being douches you want to sling names. Nice. Look to yourself as to what is wrong. You want to divide and classify instead of unify and help.
Or you could like this republican, and help these thugs become ex thugs. They see my wealth and want it. I teach them how to get it. An earned dollar is more precious than a stolen one. An earned dollar I can proudly spend.
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I understand that the same sort of thing exists in the UK, the so-called 'yob culture'.
I'm not sure that sort of thing is as tolerated in other european countries, though, where there is less reverence for freedom. There seems to be a segment of the USA and UK that believe "freedom" means the freedom to fark over others and their property and to raise hell without restraint.
It's too bad. Such people are one day going to destroy the tradition of freedom in those countries.
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In the US, "freedom" is a legal right.
Outside US, "freedom" is a moral right.
The difference is that outside US, people don't defend being a dick by claiming "freedom".
Re:Thug culture is to blame. (Score:5, Informative)
Umm, no. It was a couple douchebag "pranksters" looking for fame. The culprits are Jesse Wellens & Ed Bassmaster, the last people to pick up the hitchbot & the ones who released this fake video: https://twitter.com/CBCNews/st... [twitter.com] You can tell its fake because Google maps shows there's no surveillance cameras in the area (confirmed the local Fox News affiliates) and the angle is too low. What they did was stage it, they left the bot in one place (shown on local news footage) but later returned to stage the publicity stunt using their own camera & adding effects to the video to make it look more like security footage. Like so: https://twitter.com/JMJimmy1/s... [twitter.com] Fortunately they're complete idiots and people saw through it right away. Not only did they recognize Ed Bassmaster in the video, they noticed his truck parked across the street. Meanwhile they've generated hundreds of thousands of views on various YouTube videos to rake in $$$ for their vandalism.
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This article (http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150803_Should_hitchBOT_live_on_.html) describes them as "Two Philadelphia-area pranksters with millions of online followers"
If their pranks involve filming themselves vandalizing things, is it really inaccurate to describe them as part of thug culture? If not in their day-to-day lives, at least their online personas?
The article also includes a quote from one of them: ""Cops tryin to blame Always Teste," Bassmaster tweeted earlier today."
That sounds pretty th
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thug
TH/
noun
noun: thug; plural noun: thugs; noun: Thug
1. a violent person, especially a criminal.
: a brutal ruffian or assassin : gangster
These guys are punks at best though more likely just posers.
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This article (http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150803_Should_hitchBOT_live_on_.html) describes them as "Two Philadelphia-area pranksters with millions of online followers"
If their pranks involve filming themselves vandalizing things, is it really inaccurate to describe them as part of thug culture? If not in their day-to-day lives, at least their online personas?
The article also includes a quote from one of them: ""Cops tryin to blame Always Teste," Bassmaster tweeted earlier today."
That sounds pretty thuggy.
I can't talk about Bassmaster, but my wife regularly watches Wellens, so I have seen a lot of his videos. His prank stuff mostly involves his girlfriend or doing stupid stuff out in public. The ghost projection trick he did the other day would certainly have freaked me out if it woke me at 4am. But I've never seen him destroy/vandalize anything.
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Now now, don't blame the thugs. They're just following the example of every other big business.
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Most Americans do agree that it is a degenerate sub-culture [1]. The problem is that the media panders to it with artist after artist glorifying their harem, arsenal, supply of psychoactive substances, and how they ventilated the poor schmoe down at the convenience store.
Why do record labels and movie studios pander to keeping this obnoxious sub culture alive? It makes money:
1: Private prisons benefit a lot from felonies, especially ones committed with a firearm since those grant mandatory sentences for
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Re:American Cities (Score:5, Insightful)
The robot will *always* have been vandalised. That is the only end condition. It is a social experiment, to see if the robot gets vandalised, which runs until it happens. The experiment can be viewed as:
// do nothing
while !robot.IsVandalised() {
if robot.NeedsRepair() {
community.Repair(robot)
}
}
community.ExpressOutrageAtHumanity()
This only proves "at least one person will vandalise a (reports indicate already-broken) robot". We already knew that.
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That is one view. I think though there may be some more complexity in it. I mean it asks how willing are people to empathize and assist a thing? How many people will see the project and be amused or want to help out before someone destructive does come along? Will our modern culture of fear 'interfere' how would the authorities respond etc, remember when they thought lightbrites just had to be bombs some years ago?
I think there was some artistic interest and merit in this. At least as much as covering
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I wouldn't expect authorities to be afraid of it. I would expect them to recognize it as a piece of debris and remove it to the dump.
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Quit spouting off your drivel, you fucking retard.
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There's a bug in your code.
while !robot.IsVandalised() {
community.ExpressMosquitoOutrageAtHumanity()
if robot.NeedsRepair() {
community.Repair(robot)
} // do nothing
}
Now there is a bug in your code.
Re:American Cities (Score:4, Insightful)
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Really because I have been to Paris and, aside from being large and full of people speaking french, it was just like any American city. Hell, its the only place I have ever seen signs warning me to watch out for pickpockets. Its the only place I have seen organized groups driving around trying to sell people fake or stolen clothing (when the second car stops you with the same sob story about needing to get back to Italy with the same jackets in his car.... who needs "gas money" and will give me these two ja
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Conjecturing on Brazil. Truth is, it made it fine across 3 countries. Sure it wasn't a Jewbot so it did survive Germany but the point is, the moment it landed in the sh!thole of Philly, it had no chance. Regardless of bin colour.
#robotlivesmatter
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Why are American cities such rotten, dangerous hellholes?
Because FREEDOM, you socialist scumbag.
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What exactly are you trying to prove?
I think you're doing your nation a disservice by trying to defend it.
Self defense? (Score:2)
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Re:Self defense? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm waiting for HitchBot5 because it'll be ALIVE! (and with a frickin' laser, too)
NO DISASSEMBLE!
It will never work (Score:3)
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Philly's been a hog lagoon since not very long after 1789. The Constitution was pretty much the last positive thing to come out of that place.
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Try as you might you will never erase this country's image of Philly being a scum sucking cesspool of human flesh for killing the Hitchbot.
Try as you might you will never make 99.44% of the Earth's population give one tenth of one fuck about something someone left on the side of the road, when they have important things to worry about.
Re:It will never work (Score:4, Insightful)
This is true. But then I'd expect that 99.44% to just drive by and leave it alone. And HitchBOT isn't like my friend's Bentley that keeps getting keyed because, "Rich people suck".
Ths was a demonstration of pure sociopathy. And I'm surprised that law enforcement doesn't set up occasional stings to catch this kind of behavior. The resulting penalty doesn't have to be much. But get these people 'on the books' so that when they apply for a weapons permit or a license as a teacher, there is a red flag on their record.
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Stockholm Syndrome's a bitch, isn't it? (Score:3)
>We feel it's the least we can do to let everyone, especially the Robot community, know that Philly isn't so bad.
Philly has a well known reputation and the fact that you're even talking about replacing HitchBot to demonstrate that it's rep is wrong is willfully ignoring it. If the reputation wasn't correct, you wouldn't need to replace the bot.
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Trim your damned URLs ... (Score:5, Informative)
Come on guys, what the hell are you doing posting URLs with so much tracking crap embedded in it?
The third URL is arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2015/08/we-can-rebuild-him-philadelphia-hackers-offer-brotherly-love-to-fallen-robot/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+(Ars+Technica+-+All+content)
And the entirety of "?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+(Ars+Technica+-+All+content)" is just tracking crap which shouldn't even be incluced.
Are you guys getting affiliate clicks? Or are you just too damned lazy to not give us URLs full of this crap?
To the guys offering to fix this, kudos and good on 'ya.
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I see this often even from computer experts. It drives me crazy!
I don't think it should be fixed! (Score:4, Insightful)
Hitchbot has a technology component yes, but its hardly state of the art anything, except maybe in 'art' were we might call it avant garde.
Hitchbot if anything was a work of performance or installation art and the show is over. It traveled a lot of miles elicited a lot of responses, many very positive, some negative and finally one vicious and destructive. That is its story. It the work of its creators and we should of course respect their wishes for the project but I think we gain more insight in considering the run it had rather than extending it forever.
Hitchbot is something that can be put back together, but this world is full of things that can't. Even rebuilding / recreating hitchbot won't reproduce the creative moment when some person had the idea to make a hitch hiking robot.
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Fixing it or not fixing it has no effect on its value as a piece of artwork, or as a cultural icon. If it doesn't get a new head, that is a statement of a sort. If it does get a new head, it's a different statement, but it's no more or less valid. It's just what happened.
There's no particular reason to follow or not follow the wishes of the creators, either. They put it out in the world and left it to its own devices. It belongs to all of us now.
I say fix it, slap it on the ass, and send it on its way
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Even rebuilding / recreating hitchbot won't reproduce the creative moment when some person had the idea to make a hitch hiking robot.
IMHO, Hitchbot is mostly a social game, without lofty artistic goals. Rebuilding it from the original parts at the place where it was destroyed seems entirely within the implied "rules" of the game. Also "We can rebuild him...we have the technology" is quite fitting for a robotic US roadtrip.
Walnut and 16th St (Score:5, Funny)
This should have been the neighborhood where the robot landed. It's near UPenn and has an Apple store, but it also hosts a significant population of Linux Orthodox. Either group would have given him shelter, fresh downloaded updates and a pint of RustOleum for the road. Instead he ended up in the Windows part of town. Had he looked around and seen the graffitoed blue screen stop codes all over the walls, he could still have taken a bus to safety with his remaining Bitcoin. Situational awareness, people!
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I had a good laugh at this. Thanks, you made my morning! ... Linux Orthodox.. I love it!
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As was sci-fi and children's cartoons before it.
Who cares? Nobody's forcing you to spend money on it.
Naturally, The Hacktory stepped in... (Score:2)
Wasn't surprised to hear The Hacktory decided to get involved. Philly's got a pretty active "maker" culture, and isn't exactly short of a few colleges that have healthy STEM departments.
But what do I know, huh? Big cities are the worst places ever. Best to hole up as a hermit on a 50-acre property where the the gamma rays from space can't geolocate you.
A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link (Score:2)
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